by Nalini Singh
“I’d bet on it.” Max handed back the ugly e-mail. “I have to keep an open mind about the murders in case some other crazies were ‘inspired’ by Pure Psy, but my gut says Henry Scott and his fanatics are knee-deep in it.”
“Gloria,” Andrew said, watching the cop’s face, “she was erased.”
Lines flared out at the corners of the cop’s slightly uptilted eyes. “You have very good intel. That was done without my knowledge; the other sites are being processed as they should be.”
Andrew knew without asking that whoever had given the order for erasure wouldn’t be doing so again. It made him very curious as to exactly what kind of a deal Nikita had struck with the cop that allowed him that much power, but he knew that wasn’t a question Max would answer. So he asked another. “What’s it like, working for a Councilor?”
“Half the time I’m rubbing my hands in insane glee at the information I have access to.”
“And the other half?”
“I’m trying not to fucking murder someone myself—usually Nikita.” Max’s phone beeped on the heels of that comment. The cop glanced at the readout with a smile. “My wife wants me home for dinner.”
Andrew didn’t have to be psychic to sense the other man’s unadulterated pleasure. Feeling bad tempered for no other reason than that Indigo was mad at him, he said, “Have you ever made her angry?” If the cop said that he and his wife lived in a state of constant connubial bliss, Andrew decided he’d have full cause to throw a punch.
Max raised an eyebrow. “Sure, I’m human.” He slid the phone into the pocket of his suit pants and rose to his feet with a distinctly amused glint in his eye. “Making up is the fun part, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.”
Indigo sank into what she thought was a well-deserved bath late that night, having only now finished updating the other lieutenants as to the situation with the Psy incursions. Tomás had had further disturbing news to share—more dead Psy, this time on the edges of the state and left in public areas where they couldn’t be missed.
Judd, having taken charge of keeping track of that situation earlier, had volunteered to continue to handle it, and Indigo was so grateful, she could’ve kissed him. She was tired from the search, her muscles tense, but mostly she had an itch and no one to scratch it. Hissing out a breath, she sank deeper into the hot water, damn glad she’d chosen one of the rooms with a bath rather than a shower. She’d just picked up the loofah to run it down her leg when she heard someone enter her apartment.
Very, very few people would’ve felt they had the right to waltz on in.
Then she caught the scent of wild, wicked male and the liquid heat between her legs had nothing to do with the bath. “How did the meeting go?” she asked as Drew appeared in the doorway, his eyes skating over the bubbles that covered her from neck to toe.
“Dead Psy might be connected to Pure Psy. Looks like they’re collateral damage in a political showdown.”
The Psy were the enemy, but today, she felt pity for those who had no choice but to remain in the PsyNet. “God, imagine having sociopathic bastards like that as your leadership.”
“I’d rather not talk about the Council right now.”
“Oh? What would you like to discuss?” She raised an arm out of the tub and began to run the loofah down it, wanting to torture him in revenge for her keening sexual frustration.
Closing the distance between them, he perched on the edge of the tub, dipping his fingers into the foam, his eyes on her face. “Indigo.”
She looked up, raised an eyebrow.
And held his gaze as he shifted his hold so that one of his hands was on either side of the tub, enclosing her in a prison of steely male muscle. “I,” he said quietly, “am a dominant male. You need to learn to deal with that.”
His tone made her claws prick the insides of her skin, but she kept her own tone neutral. “I’m more than used to dealing with dominant males.”
“Bull. Shit.” Quiet. Intense. “You’ve had lovers, but never one whom you’ve let in enough that you actually had to deal with the implications.”
“What makes you think you’re about to break the pattern?”
Water sloshed over the edge and onto the tile floor as Drew got into the tub, jeans and all, and knelt to straddle her. In spite of her shock, she was ready for him when he cupped her face in his hands and swept his tongue into her mouth. She tasted an earthy masculine sensuality, a hint of beer—smooth and dark—and something that licked at her senses like fire. Drew. His tongue stroked and licked, while his hands kept her in place for his delectation, his teeth biting on her lower lip, teasing her upper one.
Heat uncurled in her abdomen, though she recognized exactly what he was doing. It was another display of possession. Her wolf bared its fangs at the idea, giving her enough strength of will to break the kiss, push at his shoulders with her claws. He refused to move, but he put his hands on the edge of the bath behind her.
She was sucking in a breath to speak when he simply bent his head and kissed her again. All hot and warm and sexy and demanding. Sex, she thought, wasn’t going to solve anything . . . but then he slid one hand down to squeeze her breast and a surge of blinding passion eclipsed every other thought. Biting down on his lower lip, she tugged up his head with a hand fisted in his hair. “Take off the T-shirt.”
To her surprise, he didn’t argue, reaching down and pulling the half-sodden material over his head. It landed soundlessly on the fluffy bath mat as he threw it over the side. She was stroking her hands up his chest, delighting in the heated silk of his body, when he kissed her again—and this time, there was no buildup. No, he just continued on from where he’d left off, fondling her breast with a proprietary touch that made her want to moan and to bite him at the same time.
His free hand, he stroked down to press against her abdomen.
As she went to reach for his erection, he angled that hand down, spearing his fingers through her curls to—
She screamed into his mouth as he thrust two fingers inside her. “Damn it, Drew,” she gasped, “that is not foreplay.”
He bit at her neck, smoothing his other hand down her ribs, then back up to squeeze and caress her breasts, rubbing his thumb over one tightly furled nipple. “Yes, it is.” Another kiss, another tangling of lips and teeth and tongue. “I can feel you all silky and luscious”—two fast thrusts that threw her shockingly close to orgasm—“and ready, so hot and ready.”
Groaning, she reached down to struggle with his soaked jeans. The stupid button refused to come undone—and he refused to help, intent on driving her to madness—so she flicked out her claws and shredded the denim. Her hand met more sodden fabric, hiding the hot, throbbing ridge of his impressive arousal. “You decide to wear underwear today of all days,” she muttered when he gave her a second to breathe.
Drew, she’d learned, liked to kiss. And she was becoming addicted to his brand of it.
“Touch me, Indy.” A husky request against her mouth.
Oh, God, that voice.
She shivered in pure sensory pleasure. “I’m trying.”
Squeezing and petting him through the fabric, she was gratified to feel his fingers lose their rhythm inside her body.
But he recovered fast, sliding his free hand up to clench in her hair so he could tug back her head and devour her mouth while his fingers began pumping harder, faster. Stars flickered at the corners of Indigo’s vision, but she gritted her teeth and held on—she wanted the damn wolf inside her. Shredding the underwear—with considerable care, because she so did not want to damage him—she shoved at his chest with all her strength.
He broke the kiss, removing his fingers from her with a lingering stroke, and let her push him back until she could straddle him. That was all the control he gave her. An instant later, his hands were on her hips and his erection was nudging at her, and he was thrusting into her with blunt promise.
Crying out, Indigo gripped the edges of the bath, her breasts damp an
d gleaming above him as their bodies danced slick and hot beneath the water. The joining was a little rough, all raw. And then he closed his teeth over the delicate flesh of her breast and her body went taut in an explosion of pleasure, her muscles squeezing him tight as he crushed her to him and came with a hard, explosive grunt.
CHAPTER 28
Having received a call from Drew after he spoke to Max, Judd made a call of his own. “The Council split,” he said, “how bad is it?”
“Bad. The Scotts are determined to get rid of Nikita for one. She’s made some provocative statements against Silence—and acted on them.”
Judd considered what he knew of Councilor Nikita Duncan, wondered what was in this for her. “You can’t kill them all,” he said, remembering the Ghost’s statement the last time they’d spoken.
“They are a disease, a virus that feeds upon our people.”
“Have you considered how close you are to the Net?” Dark patches, dead patches, that was the information he had about the sprawling psychic network that fed the minds of millions of Psy on the planet—as if part of its psychic fabric was rotting away. “The degeneration could be affecting you.”
“No,” the Ghost said. “I am quite sane.”
Judd wasn’t certain the Ghost had ever been truly sane—no one with that much power could be. But he’d always been logical. “The Council’s collapse, with no new system in place, will destabilize the Net, kill hundreds of thousands of innocents.”
“Do you think I have a heart?” the Ghost asked curiously. “To be affected by such a fact?”
Judd knew the Ghost was getting closer and closer to slipping over the edge—and he knew he couldn’t let him. Not simply because of the rebel’s lethal power, but because Judd considered him a friend. “One person,” Judd said. “There must be one person who you do not want to die.”
A long, long pause. “If there is?”
Judd’s relief was crushing. “Consider that person each time you make a decision.”
This time, the pause was longer, thicker, darker. “I will consider. For now.”
CHAPTER 29
Indigo wasn’t entirely sure how they made it from the bath to the bed, but she surfaced to find herself warm, dry, and sprawled on her front on the bed, with an equally relaxed Andrew on his back beside her. Of course, one of his hands was on her butt, stroking in a way that said “mine” more strongly than words ever could.
Finding strength from somewhere, she poked him in the arm. “What was that?”
He squeezed the globe he was caressing. “Really excellent sex.”
Her wolf growled, but it was all pretend. Drew had wrung the mean out of both of them. “You were trying to sex me into submission.”
“Did it work?” A lazy grin as he turned to look at her. “I was just being me.”
It was very close to what he’d said at the start. “I’m not going to suddenly accept all the dominance bullshit.”
“Did I ask you to?” Blue eyes narrowing. “But if I’m learning how to deal with a lieutenant with a milewide streak of stubborn and a tendency to put up walls of ice, you better fucking learn to deal with a tracker who isn’t about to let you walk all over him.”
That made her roll her eyes. “The only steamroller I see around here is about six feet two and two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle.”
Instead of adding fuel to the fire of his anger, that made his eyes turn warm. He shifted to throw one leg over her, petting her exposed body with an even more possessive hand. “You broke my heart when you said I didn’t know about foreplay.”
Her lips twitched. “Yes, you’re terrible at sex. Terrible.” That was why she was lying here with melted bones and an inner wolf who was so dozy, she was sprawled out in complete abandon.
“Hmm.” A kiss pressed to her shoulder. “I guess I should work on that.”
She was about to reply when he moved so that he was braced over her, supporting himself with one arm bent at the elbow, while he reached down to part her thighs with the other. The heat of his chest burned, and she sighed at the pleasure of having him so close. “If you tell me you’re ready again after that, I’ll have to call you a liar.”
“Well, now, Lieutenant, I take that as a challenge.”
She jerked as she felt the hard, silken heat of him nudging at her. “Drew . . .” Exhaustion forgotten, she raised her bottom a little, wanting him inside her. She loved the way he felt, loved the way he touched and stroked and petted.
“Uh-huh.” Still teasing her with the barest touch of his cock, he kissed the back of her neck, the top of her spine, stroking a single maddening finger around the place that was damp and hot and ready for his penetration. “I need to regain my pride.” More kisses down the line of her vertebrae, his hands gripping her hips. “Give you that foreplay.”
She shivered as his unshaven chin brushed against her lower back, as his lips touched the dip of her spine, his tongue flicking out to wet the spot before he blew a hot breath on it. “Mmm.” It was a sound of lazy pleasure as he shifted his body farther down the bed . . . and then he was gone.
Confused, she was about to turn when he gripped her ankles and tugged her until her hips were on the edge of the bed, her feet touching the floor. His hands moved again—to the backs of her thighs. Spreading them, he blew a breath against her. “What do you like, Indy? Licks”—quick, catlike flicks against her screamingly sensitive flesh—“nips”—the feel of teeth on her clitoris, her brain hazing over—“kisses?” Wet and hot and all consuming, his mouth claimed her, his tongue sliding into her in a teasing thrust before withdrawing.
She was trying to find air when he stopped, said, “So?”
“What?” she managed to gasp.
“You didn’t tell me what you liked. I wouldn’t want to get it wrong.”
She could feel him laughing, the demon. “You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
He rubbed the roughness of his chin against the soft skin of her inner thighs, licking and nipping in a way that tormented without offering relief. “I think I like this kind of foreplay.”
Indigo went to pull away, determined to grab him and ride him to exhaustion. But he felt the tenseness in her muscles and tightened his hold. Then his mouth delivered on the teasing. She hadn’t thought he could wring more pleasure from her already sated flesh.
She was wrong.
He seduced her with that wicked, laughing mouth, licking and stroking and teasing until she was on the very edge.
When he pulled away this time, she arched her back, inviting his possession. His thighs met the backs of hers an instant later, his body entering hers in a tight, slow push. Biting back a cry at the intensity of the sensation, she clenched her fists on the sheets.
He pulled her up until she could brace herself with her palms flat on the bed. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.” Never.
Then there was only the slick glide of flesh on flesh, heated, sensual murmurs, and the most searing pleasure.
* * *
Indigo came to wakefulness close to dawn, not the least surprised to find herself all but buried beneath heavy, warm male. Drew, she’d learned during the night, was a shameless bed hog—but he liked to keep her with him, so instead of being pushed off the bed, she was instead pulled under him, his thigh between hers, his hand on her breast, his face nuzzled into her neck.
She’d never had a lover attempt to claim her so totally. But, she thought, opening her heart a fraction, she could get used to this kind of affection. Because whatever he took, he gave back with staggering generosity.
Stroking her fingers into his hair, she thought over what he’d said. Because he wasn’t just affection and laughter and play—as she’d understood for the first time on the mountain two days ago. He was the pack’s tracker, with all that denoted. He was also a very, very strong dominant. He was absolutely right to demand that she learn to deal with him as he was learning to deal with her.
Her wolf growled, un
happy at the idea of bending for any man.
But was it really submitting, Indigo dared ask for the first time, if the man was bending toward you in return?
Having been wide awake since around three a.m., Hawke finished reading the latest draft of the proposed new building/ land agreement in which SnowDancer was to be a silent partner and was about to push away from the desk when his phone beeped. Seeing the caller ID, he reined in his impatience. “Lucas, what is it?”
“We got hit with the Pure Psy e-mail last night,” the DarkRiver alpha said, “and a couple of our juveniles came to me with stories of being approached in online chat rooms.”
Hawke’s wolf peeled back its lips at the boldness of the group. “Juveniles okay?”
“Just insulted,” Lucas said, a thread of pride in his tone.
“I’ve got Dorian watching the chat rooms in case they try again. We might be able to get something out of it. I’ll keep you updated.”
Hanging up after a few more words, Hawke fired off a quick note to Drew with the new information, then strode to the door. He enjoyed being inside less than even most changelings, but this work was as important to the health of the pack as his more physical protection. So—his lieutenants by his side—he’d learned to do it well.
But, having cleared his desk, and with Indigo more than capable of holding the fort—and Riaz in charge of the security/ search patrols in the mountains today—he surrendered to the wild hunger within and headed out for a run in wolf form. Several early risers among his pack saw him but none broke into his solitude. They all understood that, sometimes, a wolf needed to roam on its own.
However, he’d barely cleared the doorway when he caught a scent that instantly ruffled his fur the wrong way. She smelled like autumn fire and some rich, exotic spice. Far too potent a scent for someone so young, someone from whom he should keep his distance. Instead, he drew the spice-laced air into his lungs and ran at a ground-devouring lope that brought him to a small rise from where he could watch his prey.
